A Year of Change

The oldest and I, after a long long day, showed up at baseball at 5:15 for our first outdoor practice. There’s something about practicing outside that’s different than inside, like 200 feet fly balls! We (the dads helped shag balls) practiced until dark which was a bit after 7. It was a good practice that was much needed as we have 4 games this weekend. On top of that, it’s supposed to rain and snow both days as well, so it’ll be cold. Jag’s excited and so am I, it should be a great season as our coaches are great guys.

In the morning I moved all the wine from one room to another to consolidate it so it’s not taking up the whole house. After that I was off to Boulder to drop some wine samples and then to the Department of Wildlife to see my buddy’s about hunting season and getting the oldest into a hunters safety class. I made it home by lunchtime and the misses asked when I was going to Boulder! Guess she didn’t miss me!

After school the oldest tried out for the talent show. They had 80 kids apply and only have 12 spots. He played the clarinet and also auditioned for master of ceremonies. I hope he gets in, especially the M.C. as he’d be great. Of course he wants a new sports coat and pants for the occasion which I’ll gladly buy for him.

Today we have lots going on, what’s new, and will be on the go from morning until night. The coach said for everyone to get to bed early as our first game is at 8am! The misses face is looking better and hopefully she’ll be back to normal in a few days. My Mom and Uncle T made it home safely I think around 5 or 6. Jag and I stopped in on the way home from baseball to say hi to her, I think she’ll sleep until Sunday as that’s a long drive, especially in her little car. I don’t know how Uncle T can drive that far with his legs all scrunched up!

Time to run as it’s 6:21 and lots to do (I know I said it before but “what’s new”). It seems each day just flies by. The kids have one more week of school and then Spring break starts, whoo hoo.

Take care and God Bless.

Sure I sold a bunch of wine, we overcame a few technicalities in the misses settlement agreement, (we think) the boys did well in school but most of all the Denver Broncos made a huge splash on the free agent market. Not only did they sign Tom Brady of the New England Patriots, top receiver in Wes Welker (a shocking move that stunned the football world) but they also had 4 other signings that will really improve our team. It’s like Christmas in March, all of us fans cannot believe the genius of our beloved leader, John Elway! He should run for President, he’d do a much better job than you know who!

It’s days like these that make you forget the incompetence of our leaders and our dysfunctional society and for just a minute, give you hope that all is right in this World. Go Broncos!

Back to reality, today I need to go see some people, the boys have Tcap testing at school and then chess club when the day is done, the oldest has baseball practice from 5:30 until dark and we need to get the house cleaned up for the house cleaners! Jag has 3 baseball games this weekend, 2 on Saturday and 1 on Sunday as it’s part of a two day tournament.

Pebbles just came down (that’s the misses nickname when she has her hair pulled up on top of her head) and the boys will soon follow.

Time to run, hope all’s well.My Mom and Uncle T are on the way driving home from Arizona and should be home late this afternoon.

God Bless.

No the next Pope hasn’t been elected, (who cares anyhow) but we did come to an agreement with the “other side” on the misses neck yesterday. We agreed to settle for having her medical bills covered (with certain restrictions like no surgery) for the next two years. While we could have pushed for some cash, the amount was so small that we opted instead to go for having her bills covered. After all, this is all we wanted in the first place. Hopefully now we can get her all fixed up. In addition we will receive what’s known as a “denial of the neck” meaning they deny that they or their doctors did anything to cause injury to her neck. (too funny) This means our regular insurance will also cover any issues regarding her neck. She also had to agree to not go to work for Whole Foods again, duh! We’re glad this is finally over.

Yesterday I was off to Vail in the morning freak snowstorm and made it up there by 8:45. I was back in Denver by 11:15 and then proceeded to box a bunch more wine. Today I’m off to Ft. Collins for a “work with” for the day. This is where I ride around with a manager from the distributor and see key accounts to sell them wine. I should be home by 6pm.

The misses laid low and I hit the grocery store, the bank and ran an assortment of other errands.

The youngest had Student Council yesterday after school and in true leader fashion, he suggested an idea for the school that everyone loved and adopted right away. His idea was to have a “Nerd Day” which will be school wide in a couple of weeks. Everyone in the entire school will dress up as a nerd, what fun!

I didn’t sleep well as I had a headache all night and I tend to wake every hour or so to check on the misses. She somehow manages to sleep on her back and doesn’t move all night, from what I can tell, which is good as she still has gook all over her face to keep it moist. They told her she’d be back to normal by Saturday but she’d better start healing fast for this to happen.

The 2013 football season officially started yesterday with free agency beginning at 2pm MST. This doesn’t mean much to most people except us die hard fans that watch every move our team and others make. I’m super excited as I love it. It’s one of my guilty pleasures.

In closing, our paper, The Denver Post has the Speaker of the House, who’s a democrat, kissing his male partner on the front page! Now I’m ok with civil unions as I’ve said before but this is going too far. It’s just too much “in your face” as little kids who don’t yet understand what being gay is, will surely see it, unbelievable. Oh well, not much surprises me anymore. Our kids understand who gay people are, they just don’t understand the “why”, especially the youngest. Nothing is sacred anymore, too bad.

Time to run as it’s 5:30 and I need to go wash the car and get ready for the day. Take care and God Bless.

Where was the weatherman on this one? No one predicted snow yet it’s falling outside right now with 3 or so inches on the ground. Normally I wouldn’t care but I’m off to Vail in 1 hour and 15 minutes. Oh well, I actually like the snow and don’t mind driving in it and it’s a weekday so there shouldn’t be much skier traffic.

This morning the oldest woke me up telling me Mojo was barking. This of course was because he was downstairs watching tv which woke Mojo up!

Yesterday we had the settlement conference where we went back and forth, or should I say the judge did, between us and the other side and their lawyer. In the end after 2 hours we decided to leave without agreeing to anything and take a few days to think about it. We were pretty close but both sides wouldn’t budge. We’ll keep you posted. For us it was more of a principal thing as they were kind of condescending.

We then rushed over to the doctors office for the misses laser peel or whatever it’s called. After about an hour she had the top layer of her skin burned off. I know this as you could smell the burning skin. On top of that she looked like a zombie with a raw bloody face. No way I’m doing that! Supposedly she’ll look much younger in 3 or 4 days when she heals. I guess this procedure costs $1000 but of course we don’t have to pay as the misses is posting her daily progress on Facebook to hopefully let people understand that it’s not that bad to do. Personally I think the pictures will scare more people off but we’ll see. The misses will hopefully post her picture below when she wakes up.

Baseball practice was cancelled and the youngest was frustrated at D.I. practice as he said everyone else was just jerking around. He did sleep in his own bed last night as he didn’t really like the way Mom looked. He kept saying she didn’t look bad before this or have wrinkles and wanted to know why again did she did that to herself.

I have so much work to do and just brushed off and started the cars so time to shower, load wine, get some breakfast and head to Vail. Hopefully I’ll be back by noon. The misses is suppose to stay out of the sun but she’ll have to take Ty to school as I’ll be on the road.

Take care and God Bless,

Lots going on today. It’s the first day of waking up on the new daylight savings schedule meaning 6am is really 5! The oldest guy is up eating so he can get to school for tinikiling practice while the misses and I need to leave for her settlement conference at 9. Before then she has Monday Folders at school where she helps out and then after school, the youngest has D.I. and the oldest has baseball practice from 5:30 until dark. Meanwhile I need to ship about 20 boxes of wine plus I need to start selling some here as time is running out.

We received a little advice on Lacey yesterday, here’s one comment,

We did get some snow, probably 6 or 8 inches but it was so wet that it was almost like an ice snow mix. It did stick to the ground but after I shoveled the driveway and sidewalks, it really didn’t stick there anymore. I shoveled 4 or 5 times to get it to that point as in the morning it was piling up. The point is that the water content in the snow was so high that all the sidewalks have a sheet of ice on them this morning that would rival any skating rink. It’s super slick out there and all the leftover snow is hard as a rock. The snow plows came by late yesterday and left a good sized barrier on each side of the road where they pushed the snow. Thankfully I saw this coming and shoveled ours away as it would be tough to move this morning.

I took the boys sledding yesterday along with Ben the neighbor kid, who spent the day with us as his Mom had to go somewhere. As usual, they had a blast, what kid doesn’t like sledding.

The freakin dog woke me up again at 4:30. I’m not sure what to do here as we’re feeding her later in the day so she might sleep longer. Something has to give though as I just cannot be woken up at 4 or 4:30 every morning. It just ruins my whole day as I can’t get back to sleep. Yes I’m an early riser but I need to wake up on my own, naturally, not when  she decides it’s time for her to eat. Soon she’ll be sleeping in the garage if she doesn’t knock it off.

Last night daylight savings time kicked in so that means we all “spring forward” by an hour or we lose an hours worth of sleep. It also means it’ll be light out now until 6:30 or 7 and even longer as the days stretch towards summer.

I have some work, actually lots of work, to do today to get ready for the coming week. Ty is up with me right now but Jag wanted to sleep in. Mom of course, is also sleeping in. We’re pretty much opposites when it comes to sleeping, I get up early and she can sleep late.

Time to run as the youngest is waiting for the computer to play some game. Hope everyone is well, take care and God Bless.

They say March is the snowiest month around here and this year it seems to be the case. Lacey woke me 20 minutes or so ago and the snow has just begun. The projected total is somewhere between 7 and 14 inches by the time it’s supposed to stop late tonight. Of course the boys are all excited as they love it because of the sledding, hot chocolate and snowball fights that come along with it. They’re all resting (sleeping) still to get ready.

Thankfully it’s the weekend as I really need a break. Work is very stressful as I have the largest Company goal ever (in revenue) that’s due by the last day of April. I’m already stressing out about it as with 45 states, some of them always fall short. Time to bob and weave or shimmy and shake as when I lose sales in one market I need to make them up in another. The only good news is, is that there’s still 6 weeks or so left before April 30th.

The misses head is on and off so nothing new here. Monday we go to the settlement conference. Our lawyer says they’ll probably offer up something ridiculous like a few thousand dollars. We never asked for this long drawn out process, all we wanted, and still want, is medical treatment for her head. Another example of a system run amuck with too much corruption that rips off the one it’s designed to help. If we don’t come to terms, we’ll end up going to a state appointed doctor for an independent examination and then both sides will be stuck with that decision unless we want to spend money to depose therapists and bring in our doctors, all things that cost lots of money, that we don’t have, super. We just want the misses headache to go away.

Time to run otherwise I’ll jump into politics but what’s the point. Hope you all have a good weekend, take care and God Bless.

Good morning, the oldest is off to Tinikling Team practice and the youngest is hanging out on the couch.

The boys have a Chess Tournament after school today.  I need to be at school at 2:20 since I am a volunteer driver.  I offered to drive 7 kiddos across town…should be an interesting drive.  The kids enjoy Chess, I think.  I haven’t heard any complaints and it’s a great game of strategy to have under their belts. I wish I knew how to play. Anyway, I’m excited to watch the games.

The Destination Imagination State Finals are just around the corner… April 14th.  The fee is $150.00 and the PTA graciously picked up the tab for our youngsters. Hurray PTA!  We really do have a great school.

I went to acupuncture yesterday and then we took the kiddos to the Crepe restaurant.  Both boys had bacon,egg and cheese crepes followed by desert.  The oldest built his own crepe with bananas, nutella and powdered sugar and the youngest chose to have vanilla and chocolate ice cream with powdered sugar and strawberries. Yum!  We all really enjoyed ourselves and the staff at the restaurant were extremely friendly people.

It’s March Madness at our house…meaning the Mr. and I are quite mad about the wall to wall spring mud on our floors.  I haven’t been much help cleaning…I seem to create more mess than I clean, as do the boys and the dogs.  The Mr. just can’t keep up as hard as he tries.  I’ll jump in and help this morning and this afternoon.  We are supposed to get the storm that just left California later today which they say will bring 7-14 inches of snow.  That will give us a brief reprieve from the mud at least until Tuesday when the temperature is going to hit the mid 60’s….March Madness or Spring Gladness I’m not sure which I’m feeling.

Time to run…don’t for get to spring forward with daylight savings time. Here is a picture of our 3rd grade DI Team

Love to all and God Bless

Last night was the youngest guys last basketball game as I told you all yesterday. What we didn’t know at the time was it was going to be the best game he played all season. He was all over the boards (rebounding) stole the ball a few times, played great defense and got off a few shots. Even though he didn’t make a basket (our team only made 5 all game and the basket is ten feet tall) he played great! Mom brought cupcakes and juice for everyone after the game.

This morning I’m taking the car for an oil change at 8 and then the misses and I will go see her attorney at 10:30. Then I have lunch at noon and I think she’s downtown or somewhere doing something.

The oldest guy is up with me but Mom and Ty are still sleeping. We had a few car break ins the night before last. Normally the thieves don’t come this far west but some neighbors saw some people casing the neighborhood the other day. She thought it was suspicious but you can’t call the police for someone walking up and down your street.

The floors are full of mud as Lacey goes out and rolls in the mud and melting snow and then comes in with a couple of inches caked on each paw. She loves to roll in the mud, super!

Time to run, hope all’s well, here’s a quote for the day to ponder,

“For decades, it has been obvious that there are irreconcilable differences between Americans who want to control the lives of others and those who wish to be left alone. Which is the more peaceful solution: Americans using the brute force of government to beat liberty-minded people into submission or simply parting company.” – Dr. Walter E. Williams

God Bless,

What! Uncle T called from Phoenix last night to say Grandma has some new piercings. We were all wondering what he meant. Did she get her belly button or maybe her tongue, or God forbid, her nose pierced? Turns out she only had her ears stuck again. She’s had trouble for years getting her earrings in.

The oldest just came bounding down the stairs as he has tinikiling team this morning. Tonight is the youngest guys last basketball game of the session. He wants me to sign up to coach so he can play again as our neighbor and current coach doesn’t want to do it. Looks like I’ll have to step up and help out so he can play. God knows I have lots of spare time (sarcasim) but for the kids, I’ll make time.

Italy’s Mt. Etna blew up last night. There’s been a dramatic increase in earthquakes and volcanic activity worldwide over the past 6 months. Nobody much cares or notices things like these as they’re too busy watching the latest tv show or something. I take notice but also realize things like this happen in cycles, usually. This means maybe 500 years ago this type of thing could have happened too, but with all our modern technology these days, scientists pretty much know if it’s normal or not, and right now they’re a bit concerned.

Today the misses is downtown for work. She’s supposed to have her face treated with a laser and then they will post pictures on line every day to show the progress over the time it takes her to heal and hopefully look better. I told her she should probably hold off at least until her settlement conference next Monday with the attorneys for her head. They asked if I wanted to do it too to which I promptly said no!

The good looking one just came downstairs to join the party. Ty is still sleeping which is good news for everyone. Time to run as it’ll be time to take the big guy to school soon and I have to try to get in touch with my guy in Florida and have a quick call with Italy.

Oh yea, in the past week the Pres’s approval rating has dropped 6 points! Maybe the shine is finally coming off this slick talking charlatan. I still cannot fathom how he was re-elected. I guess by now you can tell I’m not his biggest fan!

God Bless.